List of Posts

Posts Tagged ‘digital video’

More bang for your buck - repurpose your content as online video Thursday, February 11th, 2010

Phyllis Zimbler Miller writes this week in the Internet Business Examiner about a cost-effective way to drive more traffic to your site - turn your existing text content into video content.

She writes, “Turning your written content into short (2-3 minute) videos can be a very effective way to repurpose your content.

“You can break up the content of a long article or post into two or three short videos of you talking about the subject and then upload these to YouTube with appropriate keyword tags. Next you can embed the videos on your own site and leave the video link on other places around the Web.

“Of course, it’s a good idea to include your site’s URL on the video itself so that anyone seeing the video can instantly connect to you.”

While I think repurposing text content as video can be very effective, I would caution against just producing a talking head video of someone reading out your articles verbatim. You need to be a bit more creative and think of how you can tell the story visually, using pictures and graphics, rather than just someone’s face. That creative touch can mean the difference between traffic arriving at your page and bouncing off, and traffic that stays and moves down the conversion funnel.

Ray Welling, Content Guy, Zazoo


Consumers expect video entertainment as well as marketing from companies Friday, February 5th, 2010

eMarketer’s recent report on the use of online video by the consumer packaged goods sector has uncovered some interesting results, such as the numbers showing that people are expecting to be entertained by companies as much as they are expecting to be marketed to.

Across nearly all of the categories, entertainment rated as high as marketing (see above). Solving problems and offering incentives to buy were the highest rating expectations, on average.

The survey, conducted among nearly 600 US new media users, demonstrates the strength of online video and shows how consumers’ perceptions of marketing and advertising are changing, as the line between content and promotion becomes increasingly blurred.

“Digital video content, whether delivered through a computer, mobile phone, handheld device or TV monitor, has the potential to ignite two-way conversations between consumers and brands,” said Tobi Elkin, author of the report.

According to an eMarketer summary of the report: “Putting a hard number on the dollars spent by consumer packaged goods marketers on online video content is difficult, as outlays are not included in measures of paid advertising spending. Assessing its effectiveness is likewise a problem for marketers. The same metrics issues that bedevil marketers trying to assess the effect of online advertising on their brands also plague the ability to evaluate the performance of video content.”

Ray Welling, Content Guy, Zazoo


Constant content reaps business benefits Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010

A recent article in MarketingProfs has some insightful comments about what sort of content you should put on our website to engage people and get them to keep coming back to your site.

Bob Knorpp, president of the advertising, marketing and social networking consultancy Cool Beans, makes the point that your website should be about the future, not the past. He says, “I could have easily filled my website with descriptions and photos of my past projects. But I hated that option,” because perusing a list of past accomplishments at a website is like “reading a history book and calling it cutting-edge thinking.”

He creates weekly podcasts and video clips related to the podcasts, tweets about site updates, and has a Facebook and Wikipedia page. Although the amount of effort sounds exhausting, he says it helps his business in three ways:

  1. It establishes him as an experts
  2. It provides context for clients.
  3. It makes him better at his job.

“Having your customers engage with a growing body of content is one of the surest ways to raise the perception that you are expert in your given field, and create a path toward ongoing loyalty and advocacy with your brand,” Bob says.

Shameless plug: If you want to emulate those efforts but don’t have the time/internal resources, Zazoo can help you create relevant, up-to-date, optimised content.

Ray Welling, Content Guy, Zazoo


8 ways to use online content Friday, January 15th, 2010

Blogger T.J. Philpott has published a good summary of how you can create content and re-work it in several ways for use in marketing your business online.

He writes: “Useful information is always in demand on the internet. Assuming the content you produce is of good quality using content like this in multiple ways is a very efficient use of a one time effort.”

He outlines seven ways to use a single piece of content:

  • Distributing content to article directories
  • Creating info products by putting several pieces of content together cohesively
  • Compiling pieces of content into an ezine you can offer to site visitors
  • Newsletters - similar to ezines, but sent regularly to customers
  • A blog post is a good way to flag new content on your site
  • Online press release services can also be used to flag new content or services
  • Most new material starts out as website content

I would add video content to this list. You can often find a way to create compelling video content out of text-based content, such as interviewing a customer who has had an interesting experience, or a how-to video on whatever service you were discussing in the text content. Note that I did not say create a talking head video where your MD reads out the original piece of content verbatim - this will not get you anywhere.


Prediction for 2010: embrace video or become invisible Sunday, January 10th, 2010

Daniel Flamberg, managing director of marketing agency Booster Rocket, published his predictions for interactive strategies for 2010 on iMedia.com this week. One of them was about the growing use of online video for business. He wrote:

“Video is the meme of choice online. It seems that everyone has and uses a video camera to upload all kinds of content online. In 2010, if you can’t be found on YouTube and its competitors, you will be invisible. (my emphasis) Look for considerable competition among sites vying to rank second. Watch vertical video sites attempt to increase their visibility, if not their utility or viewership.

“….Also look for new ways to emerge to tell stories in video. There appears to be a very broad tolerance for homemade videos and video with very modest production value. Videos will be shorter and better tagged. Many will be clickable, and some brands will try to create (or re-create) a branded online serial aimed at their psycho-demographic target. The Holy Grail is still the video that achieves altitude and is virally passed to zillions around the world.”

As more companies realise the importance of Internet content to sustaining their business, more and more will turn to low-cost video content for their websites.


Look no further for digital video content Monday, August 24th, 2009

Zazoo has produced a quick video displaying our digital video services. Contact us at info@zazoo.com.au if you would like any further info!


Zazoo Show Reel


Let’s go to the video Wednesday, August 19th, 2009

Twitter has been getting all the media attention this year, but online video has also taken off in a huge way in 2009. Here are some interesting facts:

  • 62% of U.S. adult Internet users watch videos on YouTube and other video-sharing web sites, up from 33% in late 2006, according to a recent report from the Pew Research Center.
  • Also from the report: “Online video watching among young adults is near-universal; nine in ten (89%) internet users ages 18-29 now
    say they watch content on video sharing sites, and 36% do so on a typical day.”
  • Speaking of Twitter, check out how Twitter compares to online video consumption on the chart below:

  • According to a ComScore report, 157 million Americans watched 19.5 billion online videos in June, up from the 16.8 billion in April. The average viewer watched 124 online videos in June, up from 111 million in April. Google (read YouTube) still accounts for 40% of all videos viewed and more than half of videos viewed per user.
  • A report on ClickZ calls online video “the fastest growing medium in history, having gone from zero to mass market globally in three short years.” More good advice from this report: “Create ads that work as content. Create fun or arresting videos that tell a story and seamlessly integrate your brand.”
  • Another report from iMedia UK looks at the myths of online video and explains why it’s not as expensive, boring and unaccountable as you might think.